Ghana has been listed as one of the countries selected by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to receive the HINI vaccine. The first batch of 500,000 doses of the vaccine is expected to be released within the first quarter of this year, to health workers and the security agencies. Under the programme, the WHO head office in Geneva will provide vaccines and devices to the tune of $3.8 million, while the Government of Ghana is expected to mobilise a little over $1 million with the assistance from its health partners. A budget of $4,820,408 is to cover activities during the first phase of the programme. This was made known by the acting Head of Disease Surveillance of the Ghana Health Service (GHS), Mr Michael Adjabeng, at a media/information officers workshop on Pandemic Influenza Communication in Accra last Friday. Mr Adjabeng said priority would be given to health workers and national security personnel because they were usually the ones who got into contact with infected people if there was an outbreak. He said there would be press briefings on the pandemic influenza vaccination programme at the appropriate time, adding that health workers would be informed through the administrative heads of various institutions and the security personnel through their administrative set-ups. Mr Adjabeng said apart from health workers and the security personnel, other groups of people who would be taken care of were pregnant women and other high risk people who would be informed through the local media, antenatal clinics and at religious meetings. "Special messages on the pandemic influenza, the place and time for the vaccination will be designed for the media," Mr Adjabeng stressed. He said between November 23 and November 27, 2009 a workshop was organised by WHO on plans to deploy the vaccines for Anglophone countries where member states were made to produce draft plans. On the spread of the HINI in Ghana, Mr Adjabeng said 55 (5.6 per cent) cases had been confirmed out of 979 samples investigated from August 5, 2009 to January 14, 2010 with no death so far recorded. He said the Central, Volta, Upper East and Brong Ahafo regions were yet to report any cases. The Deputy Chief Disaster Control Officer of the National Disaster Management Organisation (NADMO), Ms Ruth Arthur, said guided by experience in 2005, when the Avian Influenza outbreak occurred, the Avian Influenza Working Group (AIWG), a technical and multi-sectoral committee, became the National Technical Co-ordinating Committee. Ms Arthur, who was speaking on National Preparedness/Societal Response to HINI influenza in Ghana, said the technical committee had a mandate to "plan and execute" technical preparedness and response actions for the pandemic. Ms Arthur, who is also the Desk Officer for Disease and Epidemic Disasters, called for national awareness on what had to be done to prevent the spread of the pandemic, since in the absence of early and effective planning, Ghana could face wider social and economic disruption due to high rate of absenteeism caused by a major outbreak with consequent financial implications. She said that could bring about closure of schools, as well as workplaces, prohibition of mass gatherings such as sporting events, religious services and other social events. Other challenges, which include market closures, disruption in the provision of essential public services such as food/water/energy, public transport, air travel, banking and telecommunications services could break down due to high rate of infection among employees . An official of the Health Promotion Unit of the.GHS, A1haji Abubakar Sufyan, urged the media to support the health sector in sensitising the public to the HINI. He said the media were also to help win the support of policy makers for the control of the pandemic and also place issues of the pandemic high on the public agenda. Source: Daily Graphic